Give Big, Live Big

Have you ever noticed that with my blog I am never really trying to sell you a product? Well, I guess I’m selling something, or more accurately I’m trying to give you something and hoping that you’ll snap it up. What I’m “selling” is information and ideas and, hopefully, inspiration and motivation. It’s not that I’m against selling stuff such as books, seminars and, oh yes, an old beat up piece of real estate that I’ve fixed up and increased the price – and value! – substantially. But at this point in my life, I feel so much more like giving rather than selling.  As I’ve said before, “If you want to live big, give big.” And, of course, we are now in that wonderful giving time of year and I think you will agree with me that it feels so very good to give.

What’s amazing about giving is that it can be somewhat selfish. That may sound odd but when I give a lot it makes me feel so very good inside so wanting to feel that good is kind of selfish but in a very positive way. I love to share with others what I’ve learned about making tons of money and expanding the possibilities and experiences of one’s life and most of us need help and assistance to lift up our lives to higher levels. I mean who among us has a perfect life and doesn’t need some motivation and help in at least in at least a couple parts of our lives? Every single person that I’ve ever met that have been super successful, whether it was with money matters, business, sports, family, or love, have been helped by someone. Sometimes it is in person through work, networking, friends, people met at clubs, etc. Sometimes it is more indirect such as the things we learn from someone through books, seminars, or even blogs. We all have others to thank and appreciate.

I certainly have lots of great books, friends, coaches, and leaders who have lifted so many parts of my life. At this juncture of my life, I feel stronger than ever and so it’s time for me to give back – it’s time to pay it forward. I want to be of great help to others and not just through my books and lectures. I love to give my time and money to charities. And no, I am not talking about those huge charities that pay their CEOs or presidents one or $2 million a year. Ugh. I’m pretty sure they could find an equally qualified person that is retired or semi-retired that would do the same job for free or a small salary. It’s just not going to be me.

So, in the spirit of the season, I’d like to challenge you, my readers, to give, give, give! And, yes, even though it feels a bit selfish, you will see, as I’m sure you have in the past, that when you give BIG, you really do begin to live BIG!

Friend Compounding

 

This week, I would like to put forth a few more thoughts on the subject of friends, that all important part of our lives that I focused on in last week’s blog. Good friends really are golden and that hit me hard when I had such a super enthusiastic response from so many of my friends on that post. It got me to thinking about how much of our lives revolve around our friends.

We love our old friends and it is so fulfilling to share our lives with them. And new friends can enhance it even more and lead you to new and exciting avenues and experiences in your life. Sometimes, however, it’s kind of awkward and difficult to approach new people, especially if you are a bit shy.

If you want an easy way to meet and make new friends you might want to try this simple method. Let’s call it “Easy Friend Networking” or “Friend Compounding”. All you need to do is plan a simple party for your friends. Then ask those friends if they could please reach out and bring, say, 2 of their best friends with them to the party or maybe even have then bring 4 or 5 of their friends. This is somewhat like the concept that made 32-year-old Mark Zuckerberg a multi billionaire—he introduced the world to friend networking through Facebook. Both ideas are similar to compounding your money only it’s a compounding of friends. Of course, the real compounding would be if the friend of the friend was to invite his or her friends.

If you invited just 10 friends to your party and they followed through by bringing an average of 4 of their friends then you would meet 40 new people in one evening. You could then decide which ones you want to get to know better and to truly become your friend. I must say that I think Facebook is great but this face to face stuff is even better.

I have a good friend, who just so happens to be my wife, share with me a great quote from the magazine, Women’s World, about the value of friends. It said, “If it’s been awhile since you’ve spent time with friends, send out an invitation to get together now. Not only will reconnecting with pals lift your spirits, it’ll raise your odds of living a long, healthy life an astounding 50%.” That statistic comes from research at both the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Brigham Young University. The article goes on to say the reason it extends your life is that it reduces stress during tough times and gives more meaning to your life plus it raises your self-esteem. And I would add that having more and closer friends can add so much fun and excitement to your life as well!

Since 2017 is right around the corner, it’s probably a good time to start thinking about what we intend to accomplish and experience in the coming year, whether it is to grow our circle of good friends, increase our health, or create more wealth. In the next couple of weeks, I want to put forth some ideas of just how to set those resolutions and the different categories which would be wise to concentrate on. I’ll also talk about how to motivate yourself to follow through and get the job done. In the meantime, enjoy your friends and compound them by planning a get together or two. It is the perfect time of year to do that since saying it is for the holidays is the only explanation you need.

Following the Rules of Law and Honesty

As I mentioned last week, if you really want a fast rise to the top of your financial mountain, you may want to consider bringing on partners. Partners can give you so much more leverage. Sounds simple, right? Well, there is a bit more to it because there are laws that govern when you seek or solicit other people’s money, rules that were put in place to keep investors and their large investments safe.  That’s the first big key item to be aware of when bringing on partners. The second is that you will benefit tremendously from being completely honest as well as understating earnings expectations but I’ll talk more about that in a minute.

What the law says about soliciting other people’s money for your investments varies according to the type of investment. For complex and higher-risk investments, US law requires that the people that you approach must be so-called ‘accredited investors’ or ‘qualified investors’.  They need to have a minimum of a million dollars’ net worth (excluding their residence) or have at least $200,000 dollars in annual income (or $300,000 of joint income) each year in the last couple years to qualify. This law helps to insure these investors are in a position to make large investments as well as being people who should have the knowledge to wisely handling their finances.

You are not required to audit your partners to prove their financial standing but if it’s obvious that a potential investor is fudging their numbers, then you need to use common sense and back away from that investor. There are some lower requirements if you raise money by alternative finance means such as crowdfunding (collecting funds in small amounts from a large number of people) but the total amount of money that you can accept is limited.  Bottom line here is when you are looking for partners you should only approach those people that you are pretty certain qualify under the rules for your country and state. So know the laws that would govern your dealings with investors.

Now, onto the second key item for super success. This is a pretty simple concept but it’s one that far too many people miss out on.  A primary reason this next key item is so important is because it can bring in additional investors without hardly any effort on your part.  And all you have to do is be totally upfront and honest with your partners and never over estimate what the financial return to the investor is going to be.  If anything, under estimate and try to over deliver.  No one minds being surprised that they made more money than they were led to expect they would.

Not long ago, I was looking for a partner to invest in a very secure property that I had found. I was pretty sure I could deliver an 8% annual return on it but I told the investor that I thought the return would be around 7%. So, when I later on delivered an 8% return the investor was so pleased that he told other potential investors about his experience. That is how you get a lot of new investors. It is also the best way to advertise or market your products, if you have any.  The thing to remember is that people will more readily trust someone or be ready to buy from them because someone they know and trust referred them.

So if you are in a hurry to make a lot of money, consider the partner option but follow the rules and take good care of you partners.  The extra bonus to you is that as you help your partners improve their financial status and situation you will receive many thanks and appreciative comments. It is such a great feeling to know that you are helping other people as you help yourself too!

Compounding My Thanks

Continuing with my thank you notes I started last week, I’d like to thank the man I call “Mr. Motivator”. He showed me the importance of goal setting which helps, and almost automatically pushes and pulls you, to achieve things you didn’t think you could do at first. That person was Mr. Paul J. Meyer of Waco, Texas. He started with nothing and went on to make around $500 million by motivating others and showing them how to do the same thing.

Paul started SMI, the Success Motivation Institute, which has spread worldwide, inspiring and motivating millions of people around the globe, including myself. I’ve told you a bit about him and the story of how I came to meet him, right here on this blog, so you probably know he and I became very good friends. I truly owe a huge thanks to Mr. Paul J. Meyer and, of course, also his lovely and wonderful wife, Jane.

Notes of thanks could not be sent out without acknowledging a particularly brilliant writer and marketer that came into my life. This man showed me how to successfully spread my financial message through advertising. My ‘Mr. Mass Marketer’ is otherwise known to me as Joe Karbo of Huntington Beach, California. Because of the brilliant mass advertising methods of his that I followed, I sold over 2 million copies of my first book which helped me launch a very large seminar company. That helped me spread the financial formulas and motivation techniques that Larry Rosenberg and Paul J. Meyer taught me.

What was Joe’s brilliant marketing method? Well, he ran a brilliant full page ad that I saw entitled “The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches” with the enticing subtitle, “Most people are too busy earning a living to make any money.” I saw the ad in the Times Newspaper back on March 2nd, 1979 (I still have the original copy). It took me a lot of phone calls but I finally got to meet and know Joe and we became friends. He coached me through some amazing mass marketing success.

So thanks Joe Karbo. You helped me and you helped the world more than you are your posterity will ever know. This is true for all the great human beings I’ve mentioned in the last few weeks. Where would I be without them? Where would you be without your super motivating people

Fast Track to Billion$ with Friends

I hope you saw the great wisdom of Brian Tracy’s words of advice of to surround yourself with the ‘right people’ aka RP.  (See my February 13^th blog post.)  Those ‘right people’ are, for you, the people that have excelled in an area of life that you want to be super successful in as well.

When I was young it was all about money and, yes, a little bit of fame too. I must admit that excelling in the money department and my path to multi millions couldn’t have been done without the help, coaching and direction of certain RP in my life.  Those people were a god send. Knowing them paid off really big time for me.

But my climb up the money mountain has been eclipsed by a young man who read my first book, How to Wake Up the Financial Genius Inside You.  This university student started with nothing but quickly saw the genius behind the RP idea and was smart enough to approach a his own set of people. His RP helped push him to buy income producing property now worth3 billion dollars. Whereas I mainly approached people that could coach me and direct me this young guy approached super wealthy people and brought them in as partners.  In addition to his real estate empire he paid north of 70 million dollars in cash for the professional soccer team Real Salt Lake. This young man’s name is Dell Loy Hansen.

Part of the key to Dell’s success was taking good care of his partners. He made these great deals with them and so they in turn told others about their success including people with money. Having more people willing to invest with him allowed him to buy more and bigger properties.

So whatever your dreams are, if you want to hit it big, the path is much shorter and faster if you find the RP to surround yourself with and to work with. I also want to stress that there are many, many other good reasons to seek out and associate with those RP and for reasons much more valuable than money. I’m talking about the great life-long friendships you make and the wonderful warm relationships and experiences those alone can bring.

 

Lesson from the Life of Billy Crystal

I want to continue discussing the theme we had last week on writing your thoughts, ideas and life into a journal. I have strong and passionate feelings about this process of making a record of your life, about having the ability to read over all those ups and downs and the lessons we learn along the way.

This past week, I read about the fascinating life and thoughts of Billy Crystal in his incredible autobiography Still Foolin’ ‘Em. He wrote the book when he was turning 65 and it’s really a great read. It’s packed full of very funny stuff but I was quite a bit more impressed by his deep thoughts and feelings on everything from his family including his wonderful wife, kids and grand-kids plus the big impact his father, mother and grandmother had on him, to his numerous famous friends and not so famous friends and business associates.  I’ll tell you, if you read his book you will quickly grow to love and admire this man. He inspires you and gives you some great insights into the human mind and behavior.

He and his famous friends certainly lived the philosophy of “feel the fear and do it anyway”. That is something we all need to remind ourselves to believe in and practice. I think most of us look at famous and really successful people and think that they don’t have great fears like us but nothing could be further from the truth. Everyone has fears, but the key to success and a great life is to plow right through those fears and “do it anyway”.

The other great lesson I learned from Billy Crystal, or I should say I re-learned and reminded myself to do more of, was the huge value of people networking. I was astounded at how many friends and business contacts Billy had. Even though Billy is super talented I don’t believe he would have soared nearly as high as he did without his people networking. I’m talking hundreds of incredibly influential people he got to know who helped him on his path to such tremendous success. And did he ever soar! His success was not only as a stand-up comedian but as an actor in all those wonderful movies, TV shows and even on the Broadway stage. He made us laugh which is so very good for our minds and souls plus he gave us so many hours of movie and TV entertainment. Now through his book, he is giving even more.

I certainly don’t think Billy is even close to being finished as he approaches his 67th birthday on March 14^th of this year. The biggest lesson I think we should take away from Mr. Billy Chrystal is that all of us need to record our life, our activities and, most importantly, our thinking. This can be not only helpful to ourselves when we re-read what our thoughts were at different stages of our lives but also that your autobiography will be equally helpful to others. So keep making those journal entries and leave a legacy for your family, friends and everyone to enjoy as well as learning some great lessons from your own life.

Speaking of Determination

I just happened to pick up a little book today and it opened to a page that had this quote “some people succeed because they are destined to, but most people succeed because they are determined.” That was Elmer Towns Minute Motivators for Leaders by Stan Toler.  Great quote, a great truth and a great thing to think and about and do something about. Determination–what a great word and a great human attribute. That’s if you use it.

When I think about my own successes, whether they have been in my tennis tournaments and matches, or attaining great health or great wealth, I can clearly see the greatest common denominator for each one of my successes has been this great thing called determination.

But how does one boost or improve his or her level of determination? Researchers in human behavior studies have observed that most people can get a BIG BOOST in their own determination abilities and in their own self-control just by merely reading about or observing in other people’s examples; people who have expended a great amount of self-control or determination in various parts of their lives.  Just to know of those studies should motivate us to hang out with the kind of people that exert large amount of determination or at least we should seek out and read stories of people that use a ton of self-control and determination.

Personally I never seem to tire of observing and or reading those kinds of stories. They truly drove me to success, especially when I was in my 20’s, 30’s and 40’s. When I was younger it motivated me in sports. Later on it was all about making more money and, wow, did those people that I hung out with and the stories or others who made millions and billions push me to do more and more, and bigger and bigger.

Now at my age the people and the stories in the health and fitness department motivate me to stay the course of great health and try to do even better every day.  These stories lift me up and inspire me and even seem to give me more and more energy to do more with my life and do more to help other people with their lives.  If you really want to push and motivate yourself to levels beyond what you ever thought possible, try changing your thinking and convince yourself that your life is on the line, because in some ways our lives are on the line regardless of what we set out to do.  I’ll talk more about that next week. In the meantime, seek out stories and people who are all about determination and see if that doesn’t get you motivated to do more.

The Right Kind of People

We are in Portugal cycling this week. What a great place, great wines and great people. Earlier in the week we spent a fantastic evening with Julio Bastos and wife Isabelle at their incredible estate. The Bastos are maybe the 3rd richest family in Portugal. They wined and dined us in their castle-like home, complete with waiters and cooks that waited on us hand and foot.

If you Google Julio Tassara de Bastos you’ll find an impressive list of endeavors and success primarily in the production and export of wine. Although I don’t deal in wine myself (I do, however, drink my share!) I jumped at the chance to meet this successful couple and speak with them because they are the right kind of people to know. I was even more assured of this after our evening together. They were very warm and friendly people–not at all stuffy like some super wealthy people–and they even expressed sincere enthusiasm about eventually reading my books. It’s that kind of openness in people that make them so valuable as business contacts as well as friends.

I guess the real lesson here is not what you know but who you know, and what kind of people you come to connect with. It’s rather simple. Hang out with the right people and they will lead you to more of the right people and who knows what may come from that.

Your Life’s Biggest Stars

In my home office I have a bunch of pictures of me with famous people including the Dali Lama, President Bush, Michail Gorbochev, Lech Velessa, and many more. In the middle of these photos, there is a big sign that reads “PEOPLE WHO DON’T KNOW ME” because I want to make it clear, I’ve meet these people and it’s kind of cool to share that moment but the fact is, they don’t know me and aren’t the important people that have really affected and changed my life.

Being famous is really no more than a characteristic of a person’s life, like having kids or knowing three languages. Famous people are just people working through the trials and tribulations of life, just like the rest of us. But there are people that we meet that truly are important and touch our lives. These are often our friends, colleagues, family and even strangers. The fact is, the only people that are truly exciting and amazing to meet are the ones that enrich your life through their friendship, knowledge, and/or inspiring actions.

So, who have been the real stars in your life? What have they done that have made them shine in your mind? These are the kind of people you want to meet. Just keep in mind, to meet more of these kinds of people you need to get out there, network, and give serendipity a chance to bring them your way.

The Habit of Taking Action

Here’s one other thing about the experience I had winning at the Huntsman Tennis Tournament earlier this month. Yes, a huge part of getting through that last rough match was my positive thinking and just taking it one point at a time but there is one other thing, something very fundamental, that made it possible for me to stay in a positive thought mode and persevere even though I was exhausted. It was my innate habit of taking action.

It’s no wonder that the phrase “Do as I say, not as I do” is so often used. Many people, even when they know they should take action, ignore the wisdom they possess and do nothing. But the most successful people not only know what action to take, they actually do it, naturally and automatically. If a great opportunity comes along, they don’t hem and haw and spend so much time weighing the pros and cons that it becomes too late. They also don’t sit back and do nothing just because there is risk involved or quit when things become difficult. Success, by definition, is a result of actions taken. You cannot be successful without actually doing something.

So ask yourself, “Is action or inaction my habitual response to a new opportunity or a bump in the road?” Start paying attention to how often you choose not to act or delay reacting. This can involve anything—a chance to meet new people and network, buying a book or tool that looks like it might be helpful, investing in a potentially lucrative but risky new venture, or being in a competitive situation like my tennis match. If inaction seems to be your default, start making conscious decisions to act even when your instinct is telling you to go sit it out. I bet you’ll be surprised at how often the outcome is in your favor and how energized you are just because you tried.

Just look at me. I came very close to losing that match but even if I had, I would have known that I gave it my all and that would have been infinitely better than throwing down my racquet and calling it quits. And look at what my persevering action resulted in! A gold medal and a hard earned win that I am immensely proud of.

This is not to say that you should just act on anything that comes your way. Make informed decisions and follow common sense. But, next time, act on a potentially good thing and keep moving forward even when things get tough. See if you’re not happy that you did it, regardless of the results. Eventually, if you keep forcing yourself to act, it will become automatic. And so too, will success.

Next Page »